Arts and Entertainment Archives

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2023, in the fictional city of Port Rupert, Canada, the horror film “Hunting Matthew Nichols” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few indigenous people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A woman and a small film crew return to her hometown of Port Rupert, to do a documentary and try to solve the mystery of the 2001 disappearance of the woman’s brother and the brother’s best friend.

Culture Audience: “Hunting Matthew Nichols” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “found footage” horror movies that are made to look like mostly documentary footage.

Miranda MacDougall in “Hunting Matthew Nichols” (Photo courtesy of Dropshock Pictures and Moon7 Films)

“Hunting Matthew Nichols” doesn’t do anything groundbreaking in the ‘found footage’ horror genre. However, it’s a solidly suspenseful movie about a woman making a documentary about searching for her missing brother. “Hunting Matthew Nichols” doesn’t try to hide that “Hunting Matthew Nichols” was heavily influenced by the 1999 horror movie “The Blair Witch Project,” which one of the first major hits in the “found footage” horror genre. In fact, “The Blair Witch Project” is named as an obsession of the two people whose disappearance is the central mystery of “Hunting Matthew Nichols.”

Directed by Markian Tarasiuk (who co-wrote the “Hunting Matthew Nichols” screenplay with Sean Harris Oliver), “Hunting Matthew Nichols” takes place in the fictional city of Port Rupert, Canada, located on Vancouver Island. The movie was filmed on location on Vancouver Island. “Hunting Matthew Nichols” has its world premiere at the 2024 Newport Beach Film Festival.”

“Hunting Matthew Nichols” takes place in 2023 and begins with a montage of TV news reports about the disappearance of two 17-year-olds: Matthew Nichols (played by James Ross) and Jordan Reimer (played by Izzy Bull Bear), two best friends who were last seen together walking into Black Bear Forest on October 31, 2001. Matthew’s 29-year-old sister Tara Nichols (played by Miranda MacDougall) has returned to her hometown of Port Rupert to investigate and is making a documentary about it.

Tara is accompanied by the documentary’s director Markian Tarasiuk (playing a version of himself) and cinematographer Ryan McDonald (played by Ryan Alexander McDonald) in the making of this documentary. Port Rupert has a population of about 20,000 people. The city is located near Black Bear Forest and has cliffs and a ravine overlooking the ocean. It’s not uncommon for people to die from falling off a cliff or ravine.

During the making of this documentary, Tara interviews her widowed mother Brenda Nichols (played by Susinn McFarlen); the case’s lead investigator Pam Hamilton (played by Christine Willes); professor/folklore expert Dr. Ian Leserge (played by Joe Costa); former Port Rupert mayor Ken Crawford (played by Bernard Cuffling); and Jordan’s father Mitchell Reimer (played by Trevor Carroll), who gives Tara an antique book of spells. Dr. Leserge mentions the gruesome legend of named Roy McKenzie, a cult leader who lived in Black Bear Forest and went missing after supposedly eating his followers. Roy lived in a cabin, where Tara believes was the last place that Matthew and Jordan were found.

Matthew (the extroverted pal) and Jordan (the introverted friend) both had a fascination with “The Blair Witch Project” and were interested in making horror movies. Lead investigator Pam tells Tara that there was no evidence that Matthew and Jordan ran away or met with foul play. The general consensus in the community is that Matthew and Jordan had an accidental death where they drowned in the ocean, which is why their bodies were never found.

As time goes on, Tara becomes more obsessed about solving the mystery, while Markian begins to worry about Tara’s mental health. “Hunting Matthew Nichols” has some uneven acting performances, but the movie makes effective use of its low budget in all other areas. The sound design and music score are among the movie’s technical standouts. The last 20 minutes of “Hunting Matthew Nichols” have some memorable and genuinely creepy horror visuals. A mid-credits scene and an end-credits image give more details to the story, which tells what happened to Markian and Tara.

Dropshock Pictures and Moon7 Films released “Hunting Matthew Nichols” in U.S. cinemas on April 10, 2026. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on March 30, 2026.

Review: ‘Beast’ (2026), starring Daniel MacPherson, Luke Hemsworth and Russell Crowe

April 11, 2026

by Carla Hay

Bren Foster and Daniel MacPherson in “Beast” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Beast” (2026)

Directed by Tyler Atkins

Culture Representation: Taking place in Australia and in Bangkok, the dramatic film “Beast” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A former champion in mixed martial arts (MMA) comes out of retirement for a lucrative payment and to get revenge on a current champ who brutally injured the former champ’s younger brother during another MMA match.

Culture Audience: “Beast” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, movies about MMA fighters and well-acted sports dramas where what happens outside of athletic competitions is just as important as what happens during the competitions.

Russell Crowe in “Beast” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Beast” is slightly better than the average movie about fighters in mixed martial arts. This sports drama’s ending is predictable, but other parts of the movie are not so formulaic. What sets “Beast” apart from most other MMA movies is takes the time to show the main characters having believable and developed personalities. Although this movie cannot be expected to realistically depict the way MMA promotions operate, the physical challenges and the psychology of MMA fighters are accurately depicted.

Directed by Tyler Atkins, “Beast” was written by David Frigerio and Russell Crowe. Although Oscar-winning actor Crowe shares top billing for this movie, he doesn’t have as much screen time in “Beast” as some people might think he does. Crowe is on screen for less than 20 minutes of this 116-minute film. “Beast” takes place in Australia and in the Thailand capital of Bangkok. The movie was filmed in New South Wales, Australia.

“Beast” begins by showing the backstage area before a major MMA championship fight for a MMA promotion company called One Championship, which is headquartered in Bangkok. A trainer coach named Sammy (played by Crowe) is giving a pep talk to Patton “Pat” James (played by Daniel MacPherson) before this fight. Patton is the underdog, and he’s about to fight reigning champion Xavier Grau (played by Bren Foster), who is later revealed to be arrogant and ruthless.

Sammy, Patton, Xavier and all the other main characters in the movie are Australian. Sammy says to Patton: “There are only two people who know who’s going to win this fight tonight: That’s you and that’s me.” Sammy then leads Patton in a ritualistic chant: “If I can breathe, then I can think. I can think, then I can win.”

“Beast” doesn’t do the predictable thing by showing this fight. However, this fight is talked about a lot in the movie because Patton had a record-breaking victory in this fight: He knocked Xavier in just six seconds.

Instead of showing this fight, “Beast” fast-forwards to 10 years later. Patton is now working on a small fishing trawler with a hulking friendly co-worker named Neal (played by George Burgess), who are both supervised by a mean-spirited captain boss Barry (played by Matt Nable), who verbally bullies and underpays Patton and Neal. The movie later reveals that Patton has retired from MMA fighting after spending two-and-a-half years in prison for a bar brawl where he caused serious injuries.

Patton is now married to Luciana, nicknamed Luci (played by Kelly Gale), whom he met after he got out of prison. Patton and Luciana have a daughter named Maddie (played by Sol NC Carrico) who’s about 5 or 6 years old. Luci has also recently found out that she’s pregnant. Patton is thrilled by this news. However, the family experiences financial problems when Patton gets fired from his fisherman job because he insulted his boss.

Around the same time, the family is in crisis over another issue: Patton’s hotheaded and impulsive younger brother Malon (played by Mojean Aria) has become an MMA fighter and has been brutally injured in a fight against Xavier, who is still the reigning champ. Malon’s has a head injury that has put Malon in a coma and given him a brain clot. Malon survives but he’s under doctor’s orders to not got back to MMA fighting for at least five months.

Xavier is temporarily suspended from One Championship because of this fight. However, his opportunistic and sleazy manager Gabriel (played by Luke Hemsworth) offers Patton $75,000 to come out of retirement and fight Xavier, in an event that would be outside of the One Championship promotion. It just so happens that Malon is $50,000 in debt to a local criminal/loan shark Barry Dunn (played by Matt Nable), who loaned Malon the money so Malon could pay for MMA expenses. Patton wants to pay this debt for Malon, and unemployed Patton also needs money for his own growing family with Luciana.

Even though Patton promised Luciana that he would permanently quit MMA fighting, he takes the deal and negotiates a payment of $150,000, with half of the money up front. Patton’s return to MMA fighting doesn’t go smoothly. He doesn’t tell Luciana right away about the deal he signed to return to MMA fighting. And when she finds out, she’s understandably upset because she feels betrayed, and the two spouses have conflicts that put a strain on their marriage.

Meanwhile, for about five years, Patton has been estranged from Malon, who is resentful that Patton didn’t keep in touch with him after Patton got out of prison. Malon is also angry that Patton might try to overshadow Malon in this MMA fight against Xavier. Malon’s girlfriend Nadine (played by Saphira Moran) would like to see Malon and Patton reconcile, so she is the bridge to any possible reconciliation that Malon and Patton might have.

Patton is also estranged from Sammy because Patton “ghosted” Sammy after Patton got out of prison. As a result of losing his star MMA fighter, Sammy’s MMA training business collapsed, and Sammy’s wife left him. Sammy took Patton’s rejection very personally because “tough love” Sammy treated Patton like a son. Sammy (who now uses arm crutches) is dismissive and skeptical of Patton’s attempted comeback. Instead, Sammy’s young adult daughter Rose (played by Amy Shark) agrees to be Patton’s trainer for this comeback fight.

“Beast” has some occasionally hokey dialogue, but the acting performances are enjoyable to watch. Viewers of “Beast” should not expect to see a lot of MMA fights. There are only three MMA fights depicted in this movie, but all three of these well-shot fights are adrenaline-packed and are crucial to the story. “Beast” is much more than a story about MMA fighters who want revenge on each other. It’s also an effective story that’s ultimately about sacrifices, loyalty and redemption.

Lionsgate released “Beast” in U.S. cinemas on April 10, 2026.

Review: ‘Newborn’ (2026), starring David Oyelowo, Olivia Washington, Barry Pepper and Jimmie Fails

April 11, 2026

by Carla Hay

Aiden Stoxx, David Oyelowo and Barry Pepper in “Newborn” (Photo courtesy of Mansa Studios)

“Newborn” (2026)

Directed by Nate Parker

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state from 2011 to approximately 2030, the dramatic film “Newboard” features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A wrongfully convicted man, who has recently been released from prison, spends time with his live-in partner and their underage son at a remote resort, but he begins to experience hallucinations and possible stalking from an unknown enemy.

Culture Audience: “Newborn” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and psychological dramas that explore mental health issues, but the movie becomes repetitive and ignores the rehabilitation process.

David Oyelowo and Jimmy Fails in “Newborn” (Photo courtesy of Mansa Studios)

“Newborn” starts as a potentially riveting portrayal of how a wrongfully convicted man adjusts to life after he has been released from prison. This disappointing drama turns into a repetitive mush of hallucinations and ignores the rehabilitation process. “Newborn” also hints that it could have been an intriguing story about legal issues for a wrongfully convicted person, but that subplot also goes unexplored. The mental unraveling of the lead protagonist is reduced to underwritten scenes that wallow in clichés and bring up questions that the movie doesn’t bother to answer.

Written and directed by Nate Parker, “Newborn” (formerly titled “Solitary”) is the first release from the independent Mansa Studios, whose co-founders include Parker and “Newborn” star David Oyelowo. The movie takes place in New York state. “Newborn” was filmed in Los Angeles and in the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Harrison Hot Springs.

“Newborn” begins in New York City, in 2011. There are sounds of people in a car having a conversation about Brooklyn and New York City rent, but the people in the car are never seen on screen. Suddenly, the car crashes. This car accident is also not seen on screen, but the aftermath of this accident will have repercussions on a family for years to come.

Meanwhile, Christopher “Chris” Newborn (played by Oyelowo) and his loyal and supportive fiancée Tara Benton (played by Olivia Washington) are living in a cramped apartment in New York City’s Queens borough. Chris’ young brother Keith Newborn (played by Jimmie Fails) has been temporarily living with Chris and Tara, but Keith will soon be moving out. Chris talks about his goal for Chris and Tara to move to a bigger place. Tara says she doesn’t mind where they live as long as they’re together.

Keith suddenly comes back to the apartment. He’s has bloodstains on his clothes, and he’s in a panic. And that’s when Chris and Tara find out that Keith was in a car accident when Keith was driving Chris’ car. Keith is the only survivor of the car accident, which killed multiple people. And Keith ran away from the car accident scene.

It’s revealed later that Keith already has prior unnamed felony convictions and could face life in prison if he’s convicted of another felony. Chris, who has no criminal convictions, puts on Keith’s bloody shirt and decides to take the blame for Keith’s hit-and-run crime, despite the tearful objections of Tara. “You’ve got to trust me baby,” Chris tells Tara.

The move then fast-forwards to 2020. Through conversations and a montage of flashbacks, it’s explained that Chris was sent to prison for the hit-and-run crime that he didn’t commit. While in prison in 2013, Chris intervened when he saw prison guards viciously beating another inmate. The inmate eventually died from this beating.

The prison guards framed Chris for this murder, so Chris spent an additional seven years in prison, with most of his prison time in solitary confinement. Flashbacks show that this solitary confinement caused a great deal of trauma to him. Chris was freed from prison in 2020, thanks in large part to the Innocence Project, a non-profit group aimed at proving what the group believes are wrongful convictions and trying to get the wrongfully convicted freed from prison.

Most of “Newborn” is about what happens after Chris is released from prison. In 2020, Chris is the father of a boy named Jake (played by Aiden Stoxx), who is about 8 years old. Jake is non-verbal by choice. Medical professionals have told Tara that there is nothing physically wrong with Jake. The longer that Jake remains non-verbal, the lesser the chance that Jake will begin to speak.

Tara and Jake arrive at the prison to pick up newly released Chris. It’s later revealed that Tara didn’t know she was pregnant until after Chris was arrested for the hit-and-run crime. Tara works in an unnamed hospital job. She’s shown wearing hospital scrubs in another scene. The movie reveals almost nothing about what life was like for Tara and Jake when Chris was in prison.

Chris tries to make up for lost time in being a devoted father to Jake, but Jake seems emotionally closed off to Chris. Meanwhile, there are early indications that Chris has anger issues and is struggling with his mental health. One evening, Chris and Tara are having a romantic dinner together at a restaurant when Chris is approached by an attorney named Matt Walton (played by David Lewis), who offers his law firm’s services if Chris wants to file a lawsuit against the state of New York and the prison for wrongful convictions.

Chris says he’s not interested. When Matt starts to give Chris his business card, in case Chris changes his mind, Chris gets up and aggressively repeats that he’s not interested and looks like he’s about to start a fight with Matt. Tara is able to calm Chris down and diffuse the situation.

Later at home, Tara tells Chris that they should think about taking legal action against the state for Chris’ wrongful murder conviction. Tara mentions that Jake needs ongoing therapy that the couple can’t really afford. Chris says he wouldn’t even know where to begin to file a lawsuit, but Tara says she can help with the research. Chris agrees to this plan.

Meanwhile, Tara says that the husband of one of her co-workers has a job in real-estate and can offer them a free vacation at an upstate New York unoccupied resort that is undergoing construction. Tara says it would be a good idea for her, Chris and Jake to take a family vacation at the resort. They arrive at the resort (which is in an isolated wooded area) and are greeted by Ken Hershey (played by Barry Pepper), who is the live-in property manager.

The vacation starts off smoothly. Jake begins to open up to Chris, as a father-son bond begins to develop between them. But Chris is haunted by nightmares of his time in prison. And one day, while he is taking a walk outside near the woods, he hallucinates seeing prisoners in orange prison uniforms walking toward him. To Chris’ horror, he sees young Jake is among those prisoners.

The rest of “Newborn” becomes an increasingly tedious series of scenes showing Chris having hallucinations and paranoia that people are stalking him and out to get him. Eventually, Chris starts to suspect Ken is part of this conspiracy. The movie also hints that Chris thinks that racism is behind this conspiracy because Chris and his family are the only African Americans in this remote area. This tension leads to some violent encounters that end in a way that’s easy to predict.

Keith comes in and out of the story and doesn’t really have much of a purpose in the movie after Chris gets out of prison, except to tell Chris that men who “look like law enforcement” recently approached Keith and were asking questions about Chris. It’s also revealed that Keith is addicted to an unnamed drug and uses needles in his addiction. Keith stays for a while with Chris and his family at the resort and goes through drug addiction withdrawals.

The movie has some oddly written scenes, such as a scene where Chris is attacked and severely bitten by a wolf in the woods, with Jake as a witness. Chris is able to kill the wolf with a knife. However, Tara (who has medical training) doesn’t take Chris to a hospital. She treats the wound herself. It’s a nonsensical scene that doesn’t add anything to the story. When Chris and Tara tell Ken about the wolf attack, his attitude is nonchalant, but the movie never explains why, even though this wolf attack is a major legal and safety issue for the resort.

“Newborn” has an ending that takes place about 10 years after the events in the main story. This ending looks rushed, tacked-on and very contrived, in order to force the type of conclusion that can be expected in unimaginative movies that want to take an easy way to end the story. The movie’s ending glosses over much of the turmoil that happened in the scenes prior to this ending.

The “Newborn” principal cast members, particularly Oyelowo, turn in capable performances, but the main characters in the movie are limited to being “types” instead of well-rounded people. Chris is emotionally troubled, Tara is saintly, and non-verbal Jake doesn’t have much to do but show his emotions through facial expressions and body language. In “Newborn,” the unfocused writing and disjointed direction are the movie’s weakest links.

“Newborn” has a protagonist who experiences delusions, but much of what happens outside of his mental state doesn’t look realistic either. “Newborn” is ultimately a missed opportunity to substantially depict mental health issues and rehabilitation for those who’ve experienced prison trauma. Good acting alone cannot save this muddled movie.

Mansa Studios released “Newborn” in select U.S. cinemas (exclusively in AMC Theatres) on April 10, 2026.

Review: ‘For Worse’ (2026), starring Amy Landecker, Nico Hiraga, Missi Pyle, Gabby Hofmann, Kiersey Clemons, Paul Marino and Bradley Whitford

April 10, 2026

by Carla Hay

“For Worse”

Directed by Amy Landecker

Culture Representation: Taking place in upstate New York, the comedy film “For Worse” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African American, Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A recently divorced mother rekindles her interest in acting, begins dating a younger man from her acting class, and they go to a classmate’s wedding, where mishaps and conflicts happen.

Culture Audience: “For Worse” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and romantic comedies that take a wacky and occasionally grounded look at life after divorce.

Nico Hiraga and Amy Landecker in “For Worse” (Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media)

The romantic comedy “For Worse” often looks like skits strung together in a loosely conceived plot. However, writer/director/star Amy Landecker brings a lot of appeal and emotional authenticity to this movie about a recently divorced mother who starts dating again. Some of the supporting characters are written and depicted as obvious parodies of certain types of people, while the main characters have enough realism for the movie to bring genuine laughs.

“For Worse” is the feature-film directorial debut of Landecker, who is best known as an actress with roles in the Prime Video series “Transparent,” the Showtime series “Your Honor” and movies such as 2023’s “Missing” and 2019’s “Bombshell.” Landecker is talented in both comedy and drama, which is a skill that is very helpful during the more serious moments of this comedy.

“For Worse” had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie takes place in unnamed cities upstate New York. “For Worse” was actually filmed in Romania. The movie is mostly about life after divorce, but on another level, “For Worse” is also about mid-life crises and generation gaps in relationships.

The movie begins by showing 50-year-old real-estate agent Lauren (played by Landecker) in a divorce mediation with her soon-to-be ex-husband Chase (played by Paul Adelstein) in the final stages of their divorce. Lauren and Chase were married for about 10 years. The unnamed mediator (played by Simon Helberg) says awkward and rambling jokes. The mediation is fairly civil. After the meeting, Chase and Lauren go outside, where she starts smoking. She mentions that she started smoking again because of the divorce.

The reasons for the divorce aren’t specifically stated in the movie, but it seems like Chase was more ready to end the marriage than Lauren was. Lauren and Chase are the parent of a precocious daughter named Lucy (played by Chloe Cleary), who is about 7 or 8 years old. Lauren and Chase have agreed to share custody in their co-parenting of Lucy. At Lauren’s home, Lucy immediately starts talking to Lauren as if Lucy is a matchmaker. Lucy has made a list of qualities that Lauren should require in Lauren’s next boyfriend.

Chase has already moved on to a new lover: a much-younger woman named Sara (played by Angelique Cabral), who sends unwanted self-help advice messages and yoga videos to Lauren. Sara is trying to be nice, but Lauren thinks Sara’s unsolicited advice is annoying. Lauren’s best friend Julie (played by Missi Pyle), who is a free-spirited and openly queer bachelorette, encourages Lauren to get back into the dating scene. Julie also suggests that Lauren re-ignite her interest in acting. And so, Lauren enrolls in an acting class.

The acting class is led by a New Age-type instructor named Liz (played by Gaby Hoffmann), who teaches the class more like a psychotherapist than an acting coach. Lauren thinks she’s signed up for an acting course whose specialty is training people for TV commercials, so Lauren is caught off guard when she has to do exercises that are like group therapy. Lauren also notices that she’s older than almost everyone in the class, including Liz.

After a while, Lauren establishes a rapport with classmate Sean (played by Nico Hiraga), who’s about 20 to 25 years younger than Lauren. It doesn’t stop Sean from flirting with her. Eventually, Lauren agrees to go out on a date with Sean. When they go back to his place, Lauren really starts to feel the age gap in their different lifestyles because Sean still has roommates, and he sleeps in a sofa bed. As Lauren and Sean start to make out on the bed, Lauren has an embarrassing mishap that won’t be described here, but this mishap is intended to be comedic for people watching the movie.

After this uncomfortable first date, Lauren isn’t sure where her relationship with Sean will go. However, when their classmate Maria (played by Kiersey Clemons) invites several of the classmates to her destination wedding in another part of the state (far enough for the guests to have to stay in hotels), Lauren and Sean decide to go to the wedding as each other’s date. The wedding is the setting for most of the movie.

At the wedding, Lauren meets Maria’s fiancée Justine (played by Briana Venskus); Maria’s openly gay brother Todd (played by Spencer Stevenson); Maria’s divorced parents Dave (played by Bradley Whitford) and Debbie (played by Enuka Okuma); Debbie’s current husband Chuck (played by Jay Lacopo); and Maria’s non-binary best friend Esther (played by Liv Hewson). Even though Lauren and Sean haven’t been dating each other for very long, Lauren feels jealous and possessive at the wedding when Sean starts hanging out with Maria’s friends, who are all close to Sean’s age. Maria’s friends include Cher (played by Alma Morgado), Aspen (played by Paris Berelc) and Coco (played by Claudia Sulewski), who are all lively and fun-loving. Lauren feels the most insecure about Coco because Lauren suspects that Coco and Sean are flirting with each other.

Lauren’s first impression of Dave is that he’s a cynical sad sack who still hasn’t gotten over his divorce. Dave looks and feels out-of-place at this wedding. Lauren also meets a flirtatious and talkative magician named Rick (played by Ken Marino), a wedding guest who is seated at the same table as Lauren. The rest of “For Worse” is somewhat predictable, including the most cliché mishap that can happen at a wedding. However, the movie delivers plenty of laughs, thanks to the interesting characters and engaging conversations. “For Worse” won’t be considered a classic romantic comedy, but it has enough that’s entertaining to make it worth watching.

Brainstorm Media released “For Worse” in select U.S. cinemas on February 25, 2026, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on March 6, 2026. The movie was released on digital and VOD on April 3, 2026.

Review: ‘You, Me & Tuscany,’ starring Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page

April 9, 2026

by Carla Hay

“You, Me & Tuscany”

Directed by Kat Coiro

Some language in Italian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Italian city of Tuscany and briefly in New York City, the comedy film “You, Me & Tuscany” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An unemployed, financially struggling American woman goes to Tuscany, where she pretends that she’s the fiancée of an Italian man, whom she met one night in New York City, and she ends up falling for the man’s wealthy cousin, who was raised as his adopted brother.

Culture Audience: “You, Me & Tuscany” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and romantic comedies that look visually appealing but have the story of a cheap and flimsy romance novel.

Luca Setaccioli, Stella Pecollo, Agazio Olanda, Tommaso Cassissa, Beatrice Skyler Rigel and Giacomo Giacopini and Halle Bailey (with back facing the camera) in “You, Me & Tuscany” (Photo by Giulia Parmigiani/Universal Pictures)

Jennifer Lopez and Kate Hudson used to make awful romantic comedies in the 2000s, and they had a hard time coming out of that creative rut. “You, Me & Tuscany” (directed by Kat Coiro and written by Ryan Engle) takes the same formula as those dreadful stinker movies, makes a few technology updates, and repackages everything into something that looks shiny and new but is really just old bottom-of-the-barrel rejected leftovers. Cloying and superficial, it’s like an outdated 2000s rom com but with mid-2020s technology. It’s filled with mindless dialogue, stupid scenarios and embarrassing ethnic stereotypes. Great scenery does not make a good movie. It’s also problematic that “You, Me & Tuscany” (which was written and directed by white people) makes the movie’s only racist comments come from the African American women in the movie.

The most basic and easiest romantic comedy formula typically goes this way: An ingenue bachelorette finds herself in the presence of a handsome, usually wealthy bachelor who could solve all her financial problems if they became a couple. The bachelor and the bachelorette almost always have an uncomfortable “meet cute” moment that turns into mutual attraction. She’s involved in a misunderstanding or lie that could ruin their potential romance. Hijinks and coverups ensue, which all lead to a showdown where the truth comes out, feelings get hurt, there’s a period of estrangement where the estranged people mope around because they miss each other, and then all is forgiven, and everyone lives happily ever after.

There’s nothing wrong with a romantic comedy that has a blissfully happy ending. In fact, it’s expected most of the time. The problem with “You, Me & Tuscany” is that it does nothing imaginative or clever with this formula. It glosses over a lot of problematic issues, just because the would-be lovebirds look good together and have charming smiles. The movie isn’t a cheeky satire and is far too smug about the hollow dreck that it’s offering. It’s the equivalent of a below-average cook taking a comfort food recipe and still making a meal that’s uninspiring and nearly ruined with too many artificial sweeteners.

In “You, Me & Tuscany,” the ingenue protagonist is Anna (played by Halle Bailey), a 25-year-old who lives in New York City and is barely getting by on her house sitter salary. The beginning of the movie shows Anna waking up in an upscale apartment building and then walking a pet Chihuahua named Rocco, as she leisurely strolls down a street and browses through windows of luxury stores. In reality, Anna is not living the life of a pampered socialite.

The movie eventually reveals the truth when the real owner of the apartment comes home earlier than expected from her trip. Her name is Mrs. Dunn (played by Nia Vardalos, whose very presence signals that this is a bad rom com, based on Vardalos’ recent filmography), who is appalled that Anna is wearing her clothes and living in the way that Mrs. Dunn lives. Never mind that Anna is about four inches shorter than Mrs. Dunn, and the two women have different body shapes. Viewers are supposed to believe that Anna and Mrs. Dunn wear the same clothing size, and Mrs. Dunn’s clothes fit perfectly on Anna.

Anna makes profuse apologies to Mrs. Dunn, but Anna has betrayed too much of Mrs. Dunn’s trust. Mrs. Dunn promptly fires Anna, who has trouble finding another house-sitting job. Anna is fired when she’s about to be evicted from her apartment because she hasn’t paid her rent in months. Anna calls her best friend Claire (played by Aziza Scott), who works as a concierge at a posh hotel. Anna tells Claire about getting fired and her impending eviction. Anna asks Claire if Claire can get Anna a free room at the hotel for a few nights, which is apparently something that Claire has done in the past of Anna.

Claire is a cliché “sassy best friend” to the heroine in a romantic comedy. Claire refuses Anna’s request because married Claire is pregnant and about to go on maternity leave. Claire explains that this is not the time for Claire to do something that could get Claire fired, because Claire needs this job after she gets back from maternity leave. Claire’s husband is never seen in the movie. In fact, the movie never shows anyone else who knows Anna in America besides Claire and Mrs. Dunn. It’s all just a contrivance to make it easier for Anna to make the life-changing decision that you know she’s going to make by the end of the movie.

This phone conversation is also an exposition dump explaining more of Anna’s personal background. Anna (who has no siblings) was raised by her unnamed single mother (played by Joy Bryant, seen in photos and flashbacks), who supported Anna’s dream to become a professional chef. Anna’s mother got sick with an unnamed terminal illness, so Anna dropped out of culinary school just two months before she was supposed to graduate, in order to take care of her mother, who died in the previous year.

After Anna’s mother died, grieving Anna lost her motivation to become a chef and has been floundering in her career choices ever since. Anna mentions to Claire that Anna only has $500 in her savings account. Claire advises Anna that it’s time for Anna to start living her own fabulous life instead of being a house sitter and pretending to live other people’s fabulous lives. Apparently, Anna finds this bad habit hard to break because it’s the premise for her big lie that results in the movie’s coverups and conflicts.

The most that Claire can do for nearly homeless Anna is to give her a free meal and drinks in the hotel’s restaurant/bar that evening. It’s where Anna meets an Italian guest named Matteo (played by Lorenzo De Moor), an unattached bachelor in his early 30s. Matteo seems mutually attracted to Anna from the moment that they meet. They strike up a conversation over drinks. In this conversation, they tell each other a little bit about their lives.

Matteo says he’s visiting from his hometown of Tuscany, Italy, where his parents own a restaurant for Italian cuisine. (The movie was filmed on location in Italy, mostly in Tuscany, and is an effective promotional tool for tourism in Tuscany.) Matteo’s family, especially his father Vincenzo (played by Paolo Sassanelli), expects Matteo to take over the family business because Vincenzo is getting close to retire. Matteo tells Anna, “The life they wanted me to live is not the life I wanted, so I just ran off and never said goodbye.” Matteo hasn’t seen or communicated with his family in several months.

This immature selfishness is a very unattractive quality in a person, but don’t tell that to the filmmakers of “You, Me & Tuscany.” As far as Anna is concerned, Matteo is very attractive for superficial reasons: He’s good-looking and he’s apparently well-off financially because he tells her about his large, unoccupied villa that he left behind in Tuscany. What’s a desperate, nearly homeless and financially broke ingenue to do in a tacky rom com like “You, Me & Tuscany”?

Anna flirts with Matteo some more and tells her sob story to him, of course. And what a coincidence: Anna tells Matteo that she and her mother had planned to go to Tuscany to celebrate Anna’s culinary school graduation that never happened because Anna dropped out of culinary school, and Anna’s mother died. When Anna tells Matteo that she’s not a guest at the hotel, and she says she has nowhere to go, Matteo asks her if she wants to stay in his room for the night. Anna eagerly agrees.

What Anna thinks might be a night of passionate sex and a possible sugar daddy situation turns into disappointment for her when she comes out of the bathroom to find Matteo asleep on the bed. She takes out his iPhone, uses his face to unlock the phone, and does AirDrop copies of photos from his iPhone into her iPhone, including photos of his villa and the selfie they took at the bar. Stealing photos from someone else’s phone without their knowledge or permission is not cool or cute. It’s obnoxious and deplorable.

Anna does all kinds of things in this movie that are basically what a con artist/hustler does, but “You, Me & Tuscany” filmmakers demand that viewers root for her because she looks like a sweet-faced, busty ingenue. If you don’t believe it, imagine Anna as someone who would be considered physically unattractive by society standards, and see how quickly your feelings about her would change if she did the same things that she does in this movie. It’s why “You, Me & Tuscany” is shallow dreck that panders to a very problematic attitude that someone should be allowed to get away with doing hurtful and dishonest things if they look physically attractive.

Matteo eventually wakes up and says he’s sorry for their missed opportunity to get to know each other better, but the moment has passed, and it’s time for him to go. He lets Anna have the room for the rest of time that he has booked there. It’s enough time for Anna to talk to Claire again and tell her about Matteo. This conversation prompts Anna to take the trip to Tuscany, by taking the unused ticket that was already purchased for the trip.

And faster than you can say “idiotic rom com,” Anna is in Tuscany. And what a coincidence: a nosy taxi driver named Lorenzo (played by Marco Calvani) becomes her only taxi driver throughout the movie. Lorenzo apparently has nothing better to do with his time but to be at the beck and call of a mixed-up young woman who doesn’t know what she’s doing with her life. Lorenzo eventually hears about Anna’s messy lies and love life problems. He tells her that her deception is “romantic,” when it’s actually toxic and avoidable.

On her first day in Tuscany, Anna is walking down a street and nearly gets run over by a speeding delivery truck, whose driver doesn’t seem to notice that he almost hit someone. Anna strolls into a deli and orders a sandwich, when the driver of the truck suddenly walks in with a delivery and gets the sandwich because it’s apparently what he always orders for his lunch at this deli. Anna is annoyed by this tall, handsome stranger and tells him that he nearly ran her over and he “stole” her food order. He is cocky and dismissive and walks away. Everything about this scene screams “obvious meet cute moment.”

Anna’s day gets much worse when she finds out that all the hotels, motels, hostels and Airbnb rentals in the Tuscany area are booked because of a very popular unnamed summer festival taking place in Tuscany at the same time that Anna plans to be there, which is approximately one week. If you’ve seen the trailer for “You, Me & Tuscany,” then you already know how this movie is going to go because the trailer shows about 85% of the plot. “You, Me & Tuscany” is quite soulless with its lack of surprises and by making all the characters have cardboard cutout personalities.

With nowhere else to stay, and because she can’t afford to pay the airline fee to change her flight departure, Anna decides to squat at Matteo’s unoccupied villa for the rest of her planned trip in Tuscany. She finds out the villa’s address by looking at the house number in the photo that she stole from Matteo’s phone and going to the neighborhood where Matteo said the villa is. By sheer luck, Anna finds the villa’s front-door keys hidden underneath a frog-shaped yard ornament.

Anna snoops through the villa and finds an engagement ring in a “junk drawer” and puts on the ring. It’s explained later why Matteo has an engagement ring in his home: He also left behind an ex-fiancée named Isabella (played by Desirée Pöpper), who still has unresolved feelings for Matteo. Of course, Anna will eventually meet Isabella and will find out about Isabelle’s history with Matteo, because this rom com hits all the beats of love triangle jealousies and insecurities.

Anna spends a night at the villa, but is surprised when Matteo’s mother Gabriella (played Isabelle Ferrari) and Matteo’s grandmother Alessia (played by Stefania Cassini) show up to do some housecleaning the next day. Some slapstick comedy scenes ensue, including Anna trying and failing miserably to escape from the house by using a ladder. Anna falls flat on the ground in front of Gabriella, Alessia and a man named Giueseppe (played by Emanuele Pacca), who apparently has groundskeeper duties for this villa.

Gabriella and Alessia are understandably shocked to see a stranger at Matteo’s villa. But they react as if Anna is an intruder who literally wants to kill them. This scene has racist undertones that the movie uses for cheap laughs. Anna (who is African American) is an unarmed, petite woman who is no physical threat to these women, but Gabriella and Alessia automatically assume that Anna is going to kill them. Under the circumstances, since Anna is an intruder, it would be normal to think that Anna might be thief, but it’s quite a stretch to assume that she’s a murderer. Would Gabriella and Alessia have had such an extreme reaction if Anna were a petite white woman? Probably not.

Gabriella calls the police, and the police officers who arrive are ready to arrest Anna. Anna avoids arrest by lying. She tells everyone that she is Matteo’s fiancée when Gabriella notices that Anna is wearing the engagement ring. Anna convinces Gabriella and Alessia that she knows Matteo, based on the few things that Matteo told Anna. Anna also shows them the selfie photo of her and Matteo that was taken on the night that Matteo and Anna met. Because Matteo’s family members apparently don’t know how to contact him, they don’t check with Matteo to verify Anna’s story.

And just like that, all the racial microaggressions toward Anna disappear, and no one in Matteo’s family ever mentions Anna’s race. It’s very unrealistic in a movie where a family finds out one of the family members is part of an engaged interracial couple from different nations. By contrast, “You, Me & Tuscany” shows Anna and Claire make racially offensive comments about Matteo, by calling him “Spicy White Boy” (just because he’s Italian), in Anna and Claire’s private conversations with each other.

The movie wants viewers to believe that Matteo’s family members are so stupid, they don’t question why Anna doesn’t have Matteo’s contact information, so they can verify Anna’s story. Anna makes things up as she goes along, including saying that Matteo is ready to come back to the family. The family starts preparing for the wedding to take place in Tuscany. The only things that Anna is honest about with Matteo’s family when she first meets them are saying that she’s an American who dropped out of culinary school, and she doesn’t have any living relatives.

Matteo’s other family members who are shown in the movie include Matteo’s stubborn father Vincenzo; Matteo’s social-media-obsessed younger brother Enzo (played by Tommaso Cassissa); Matteo’s sex-obsessed older sister Francesca (played by Stella Pecollo); Francesca’s cuckold husband Leo (played by Luca Setaccioli), who is treated like he’s invisible; and Francesca’s and Leo’s two underage daughters Mia (played by Gaia Bellantone) and Bella (played by Beatrice Skyler Rigel), who don’t add anything meaningful to the story and are just there to be generic cute kids. Matteo also has two elderly relatives with the same name: Roberto (played by Agazio Olanda) and Roberto (played by Giacomo Giacopini), who are barely in the movie.

There’s one other family member, who gives Anna a shock when she finds out who he is. The delivery truck driver whom she clashed with in the deli is actually Matteo’s cousin Michael (played by Regé-Jean Page), who is biracial and has a British accent. In another exposition dump, it’s quickly explained in the movie that Michael was born in London and became an orphan at age 10, when his parents died. Gabriella and Vincenzo adopted Michael and raised him as a son.

Michael’s white Italian mother was Gabriella’s sister. Michael’s black British father was a barrister, who fell in love with Tuscany, and he gave up his law career to move to Tuscany and own a successful Tuscany vineyard, which Michael has inherited. Michael also grows farm produce on the land, which is why he was making deliveries of fresh produce to the deli. You never see any employees on Michael’s vast business property because this movie doesn’t care about realistic details. The only work situation for Michael that the movie cares about is showing Michael working alone in the vineyard and giving excuses for Michael to take off his shirt.

You know where all of this is going, of course. Anna and Michael end up being attracted to each other, as Anna gets more caught up in her lies and is afraid to tell the truth. And even though the movie tries very hard to make viewers believe that Anna and Michael have fallen in love after less than a week of knowing each other, it’s not very convincing when all of their conversations are boring and quite vapid.

And it should come as no surprise that Michael and Matteo have had a longtime “sibling rivalry.” Michael is the family’s “golden child,” who thinks Matteo is flaky and unreliable. Matteo is the family’s “black sheep,” who thinks Michael is insufferable and condescending. Because of this rivalry, you have to wonder if Michael finds Anna more attractive because he thinks she’s engaged to Matteo. The movie glosses over that issue too.

Matteo’s family is an Italian stereotype of being loud, effusive and argumentative. People who’ve spent enough time in Italy know that this is a broad and often-untrue stereotype that doesn’t apply to all Italians, just like it’s unfair to stereotype all Americans who travel to other countries as being rude, unsophisticated and xenophobic. But this forced Italian stereotype is all over “You, Me & Tuscany,” like rotten lasagna that stinks up the place.

The movie also uses stereotypes about Western Europeans having casual attitudes about adultery. One of the first things that Francesca tells Anna is this inappropriate comment to a potential sister-in-law: “Having a side piece is the key to a happy marriage.” We don’t need to know about Francesca’s sex life, but the movie keeps shoving it viewers’ faces, in an overly manufactured attempt to prove that large-sized women can have big sexual appetites too.

Most of Francesca’s character is about bragging about how much adulterous sex she has and how much she knows about sex, including having a pointless scene showing that she’s having an affair with a hunky young plumber named Luigi, whose screen time is so short, he’s not even listed as a character in the movie’s end credits. Based on the way that Michael jealously acts when he thinks Anna is engaged to Matteo, he would not be okay with Anna having a “side piece” if they got married.

Meanwhile, Anna plays the beaming ingenue, who just wants a chance to live her dream of being a chef in exactly the type of restaurant owned by Matteo’s family. Bailey has on-screen charisma in the role of Anna, but this charisma is wasted on a character who does some very deceitful and selfish things that the average person wouldn’t be able to get away with so easily. Everyone else in the movie is a predictable cliché, with performances to match. “You, Me & Tuscany” sends the same old tired and outdated message that all a woman needs is to find the right man to make her dreams come true. And if she tells some big lies along the way, then everything will be excused if she’s pretty enough.

In a world where romantic comedies like 2023’s “Rye Lane” and 2024’s “Anora” dare to do something different with the rom-com formula, on a fraction of the major-studio budget that “You, Me & Tuscany” has, there’s no excuse for the trite and lazy way that “You, Me & Tuscany” shovels out this slop that’s overloaded with saccharine smarminess. And if the “You, Me & Tuscany” filmmakers didn’t want to do anything different with the stereotypical rom-com formula, they could’ve at least made the screenplay vibrant and relatable with dialogue that sounds authentic to what real people would say, unless the characters are fictional non-human creatures.

As it stands, “You, Me & Tuscany” plays out exactly how you think it will. The movie is polluted with lots of cringeworthy scenes conceived by people who probably watched too many rom coms in the 1990s and 2000s. It’s as if the “You, Me & Tuscany” filmmakers found it difficult to think of anything that would be believable to the generation represented by the would-be couple at the center of the movie. There are many times in “You, Me & Tuscany” where you wonder if the screenplay was made for a 2006 movie, not a 2026 movie.

“You, Me & Tuscany” has stale jokes that reference “Eat, Pray, Love,” “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” three books that were popular with Generation X and made into movies that spoke mostly to Generation X audiences. It’s like putting jokes about BlackBerry phones, Siemens Mobile phones and Palm Pilot phones in a 2026 movie about an ingenue who doesn’t even remember or wasn’t even born in a world before iPhones existed. There are also awkward scenes where Mario’s 2004 hit “Let Me Love You” becomes the theme song for the romance between Anna and Michael. A more accurate theme song for this lousy movie is Drake’s 2017 hit “Fake Love.”

Universal Pictures will release “You, Me & Tuscany” in U.S. cinemas on April 10, 2026.

Review: ‘Trust Me: The False Prophet,’ starring Christine Marie, Tolga Katas, Julia Johnson, Dawn Martin, Carole Knudson, Esther Bistline, Naomi Bistline and Sam Bateman

April 8, 2026

by Carla Hay

“Trust Me: The False Prophet”

Directed by Rachel Dretzin; co-directed by Jamila Ephron, Rachel Beth Anderson and Elise Coker

Culture Representation: Filmed mostly from 2021 and 2024, in Arizona and in Utah, the four-episode true crime documentary series “Trust Me: The False Prophet” features an all-white group of people discussing the crimes of a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) cult led by convicted sex offender Sam Bateman, a former Warren Jeffs follower who dictates that underage girls in the cult should marry and have sex with men.

Culture Clash: Christine Marie, who is a cult expert and a former FLDS member, teamed up with her videographer husband Tolga Katas to infiltrate the cult, under the guise of doing a documentary as a friend to the cult, but the intent was really to rescue the sex abuse survivors and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Culture Audience: “Trust Me: The False Prophet” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in true crime documentaries about cults and sex crimes where the documentarians are also undercover investigators.

Sam Bateman in “Trust Me: The False Prophet” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

There are many documentaries about cults, but “Trust Me: The False Prophet” stands out as one of the most unforgettable because of how it was made: The footage was obtained by an “outsider” married couple who infiltrated the cult by pretending to befriend the cult members and pretending to make a flattering documentary about them. This riveting investigative docuseries uncovers disturbing information about a fundamentalist American cult and its twisted leader, who used religion to commit heinous sex crimes. The documentary is courageous advocacy for the survivors.

The documentary’s undercover investigation was done by cult expert Christine Marie (who says she’s a sex trafficking survivor) and her videographer husband Tolga Katas, who lived amongst the cult members from 2016 to 2022, in Colorado City, Arizona, which is near the border of Utah. The couple relocated specifically to Colorado City’s isolated and rural Short Creek area, with the intent of trying to de-program cult members by gaining their trust and then showing them what was wrong about the cult.

Short Creek is notorious for being the central hub of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a cult that was led by Warren Jeffs, who was convicted of sex crimes against minors in 2011, and who is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison. In 2019, a former outcast to the cult named Samuel Rappylee Bateman, better known as Sam Bateman, returned to Short Creek and deceived several people into thinking that Jeffs had died and that Bateman was the cult’s new prophet, who embodied the “reincarnated” spirit of Jeffs. “Trust Me: The False Prophet” documents what happened under Bateman’s leadership of the cult.

“Trust Me: The False Prophet” was directed by Rachel Dretzin, who had co-directors for each of the episodes in the series. Jamila Ephron co-directed the first and third episodes. Rachel Beth Anderson co-directed the second episode. Elise Coker co-directed the fourth episode. Dretzin co-directed Netflix’s 2022 docuseries “Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey,” about Jeffs’ leadership of this polygamous cult, which dictates that men can have many wives, including underage girls.

This well-edited and suspensefully paced docuseries includes frequent on-camera narration and commentary from Marie, who expresses conflicting feelings about betraying the trust of the unsuspecting victims of the crimes. Katas talks and appears on camera too, but it’s obvious that Marie is the one who is making the biggest decisions about what to do in their undercover mission. “Trust Me: The False Prophet” also shows how difficult it is for law enforcement in this region to get involved in investigating sex crimes, even with evidence of people admitting in recordings that they committed these sex crimes.

Episode 1, titled “And That’s How We Met Sam Bateman,” chronicles how Marie and Katas became part of the FLDS cult that was taken over by Bateman and the unsettling details that the couple found in the investigation. Episode 2, titled “The Prophet, a Queen, and a Camera,” reveals how some cult members began to reveal more secrets, as local police, the FBI, and a shunned cult member secretly got involved in the investigation. Episode 3, titled “We Are a High Paranoia,” shows the first time Bateman was arrested and how his devout followers reacted. Episode 4, titled “I See That Girl in Third Person,” chronicles the dramatic FBI raid that led to the downfall of Bateman and other sex crime perpetrators in the cult.

Cult expert Marie—who has a doctorate degree in psychology from Fielding Graduate University (her diploma is displayed on a wall in a documentary scene)—didn’t come to this project as a complete outsider to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. As she explains in the documentary, she was raised as a mainstream (not fundamentalist) Mormon. Marie has given a lot of charity help to the non-criminal FLDS people who financially struggled after Jeffs was imprisoned. In addition to launching a non-profit group called Voices With Dignity (which raises funds for non-criminal FLDS cult survivors and people from other stigma-ridden groups), Marie helped found a retail store called Short Creek Cottage, which is run by FLDS cult survivors and sells homemade items.

Later in the documentary, Marie says she knows what it’s like to live with a false prophet because she says her ex-husband (whom she does not name) was a false prophet who brainwashed her and psychologically abused her to the point where she was sex trafficked by him. Marie (who used to be a beauty pageant contest who was once named Ms. Michigan and Mrs. Michigan) has had a varied career that includes being a ventriloquist, a TV host and a kindergarten teacher. Her husband Katas worked mostly in music video production before doing this documentary.

Marie explains in the documentary’s first episode why she and her husband decided to move to Short Creek: “I felt drawn to come here to help these people.” She adds, “I wasn’t there to betray them. I was there to save them.” However, you can’t help feeling, as Marie and Katas film themselves moving to Short Creek, that they had an agenda from the beginning to make an investigative documentary that would get a lot of attention for themselves too. There are some short, unnecessary scenes of Katas doing retakes of Marie walking and posing for the camera, as if she’s rehearsing for an acting scene.

Based on what is said in the documentary, the members of this FLDS sect were wary of Marie and Katas at first, but the couple (especially Marie) was so helpful and kind, the cult members began to trust the couple. Eventually, the cult members agreed to be filmed for a documentary that the couple said would help the world better understand this group. At one point in the documentary, Marie and Katas also convince Bateman and his harem to do a music video.

Why did they do this music video? Because in one of Bateman’s many delusions that he is shown ranting about the documentary, he planned to make the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II his wife too, and he thought a music video would help attract her attention. (This part of the documentary was obviously filmed when Queen Elizabeth II was still alive. She died at age 96 on September 8, 2022.) Bateman is also seen in the documentary saying he wants to rule over North America, South America, and possibly England.

When Marie and Katas first moved to Short Creek in 2016, Marie says the community was in disarray because of Jeffs being in prison. Although the cult members still considered Jeffs to be their leader, it made a difference that he wasn’t physically there. From prison, Jeffs also made a bizarre command to his followers to stop getting married and to stop having sex. There’s footage in the documentary of the dozens of baby cribs that were abandoned in Short Creek because of the community’s sharp decrease in births.

Marie says she remembers that when she was a newcomer to Short Creek in 2016, Bateman (who was born in 1976) had a reputation in the community for being a schlubby loser with financial problems. Around this time, he was getting divorced from his first wife. And then, he disappeared from the community.

When he returned to Short Creek in 2019, when he was about 43 years old, he had a new wife with him. She was reportedly only 18 years old. And then, Bateman started collecting more wives, all who were much younger than him. People in Short Creek began to wonder why Bateman was defying Jeffs’ command for the followers to stop getting married.

Bateman began telling people the lie that Jeffs had secretly died in prison, and a mannequin of Jeffs was in the prison cell. Bateman also claimed that not only did Jeffs personally anoint Bateman as the group’s new prophet, but Bateman also told the cult members that Jeffs’ spirit was reincarnated in Bateman. Enough people believed Bateman to elevate him as the leader of the cult. Followers of Bateman nicknamed themselves Samuelites.

Three of these devout followers were Torrance Bistline, his brother Ladell “Lud” Bistline Jr. and their close friend Moroni Johnson. Torrance was the wealthy owner of a green energy company, while Ladell and Johnson worked for this company. Moroni Johnson’s first wife Julia Johnson, who is interviewed in the documentary, would become a crucial person in the investigation that would bring down Bateman and his toxic leadership. Torrance Bistline, Ladell “Lud” Bistline Jr. and Moroni Johnson are seen in undercover footage where they openly admit that they wholeheartedly believe that Bateman is a true prophet, and they’ll do anything that Bateman says.

Marie says in the documentary that she suspected that underage girls were being sexually abused in this cult, just like they had been when Jeffs was leading the cult. Her suspicions were confirmed when Bateman convinced several parents in the community—including the Bistline brothers and the Johnson spouses—to give their adult daughters and underage daughters to Bateman so he could “marry” them. The documentary doesn’t say how many women and girls were tangled up in this perverted mess, but there were at least 20, with several who were under the age of 15. And that’s not including the children who were born from Bateman’s polygamy.

The documentary doesn’t go into all the sordid details, but it does make it clear that Bateman used his power and influence over the cult to dictate sex orgies, where he and other men would have sex with women and girls in front of each other, with other children usually witnessing this child rape and other sex acts. Bateman dictated which sex acts would be performed on whom and when. He used his status as a “prophet” by claiming God spoke to him, and he persuaded his followers that if they did what he told them to do, they could all get closer to God. Later, the documentary includes an audio confession from Moroni Johnson where he said Bateman raped him too.

The documentary footage shows Bateman as reveling in his unchecked power in this community. He suddenly began to live a flashy lifestyle (including multiple Bentleys and Range Rovers) and obviously loved showing off his harem. Torrance Bistline is named several times as someone who was pouring a lot of money into funding this lifestyle. In addition, Bateman ordered the women and girls under his control to work long hours to make things that could be sold for money.

The most fanatical “wife” of Bateman was Naomi “Nomz” Bistline, who goes through a remarkable transformation from the beginning of the documentary to the end. As Bateman’s wife, Naomi says it took her a long time to be convinced that she should marry Bateman. But once she became his wife (his 13th wife), she devoted herself to him above and beyond the others. She was so brainwashed, some people in the documentary say that Naomi would kill without hestitation for Bateman, if she had to do it.

Although the cult members presented an image of one big happy family for the cameras, eventually cracks began to show. A few former cult members, who still live in Short Creek, began having secret conversations with Marie to express their disgust and alarm at Bateman’s reign of terror. One woman identified only as Netty looks terrified as she confides in Marie when they meet secretly in a car. One of the few men to speak out is a Warren Levi, a son of Moroni Johnson and Julia Johnson, who says he’s horrified that his sisters, including those who are underage, are living as wives of Bateman.

Other people interviewed in the documentary with past or present connections to this FLDS cult are Esther Bistline, who works for Voices With Dignity and Short Creek Cottage; former FLDS member Carole Knudson, who is Naomi Bistline’s aunt; community advocate/former FLDS Shirley Draper; and former FLDS member Lamont Barlow. They all describe how the community was in turmoil about Bateman’s takeover of FLDS. Some people were supporters, while others were not, but all were too afraid to do anything about it. Mike Watkiss, a reporter who has done extensive reporting on FLDS, says in the documentary that the FLDS community has been “fraying and fraying” in the aftermath of Jeffs’ imprisonment.

Two law enforcement officers are interviewed in the documentary. David Wilkinson, a sergeant with the Colorado City/Hilldale City Police Department, says the department was the first place where documentarians Marie and Katas began sending evidence. FBI special agent Dawn Martin, who is one of the law enforcement heroes of this story, says she was assigned to the case when Marie was able to prove that Bateman’s sex crimes were federal felonies because these crimes took place in multiple U.S. states.

In the documentary, Marie repeatedly expresses frustration that it took several months for the Colorado City/Hilldale City Police Department to respond to her inquiries regarding what they were doing about the evidence that she was giving them. This evidence included Bateman admitting in recordings that he was having sex with underage girls whom he called his “wives.” Wilkinson says in his documentary interview that it wasn’t enough to get Bateman to say he was committing these crimes. The police department had to get a statement from at least one another witness (preferably a victim) who was willing to go on record with law enforcement.

Getting this type of evidence is easier said than done because Bateman taught his followers to lie to any “outsiders” who asked questions and trained them on what to say if they were visited by officials from law enforcement and the Department of Child Safety. And although Marie and Katas were constantly filming FLDS cult members, these documentarians never caught any sexual activity on camera, and it was difficult to get any of the brainwashed “wives” to admit that they were being sexually abused as a result of Bateman’s actions. Bateman was careful not to have any incriminating evidence on his phone. Bateman also reportedly had a rule that he and the men involved in the sexual abuse couldn’t have vaginal sexual intercourse with any underage girls, in order to avoid pregnancy as evidence of statutory rape, but the men would sexually abuse the girls in other ways.

Meanwhile, Martin (whose specialty was sex crimes investigations) says in her interview that she doesn’t know why the Colorado City/Hilldale City Police Department took so long to investigate and at least issue a search warrant with all the evidence that Marie was giving them. What’s not said out loud in the documentary is a common criticism of law enforcement investigating sex crimes: If a religious leader or other powerful person is accused of sex crimes, the investigation can get delayed or ignored, depending on how much influence the leader’s group has in the community.

One of the most compelling parts of the documentary is how Julia Johnson became a skeptic and then an ally of Marie, who convinced Julia to become a confidential informant to law enforcement. It didn’t happen right away. But Julia (whose daughters were all “married” to Bateman) was eventually shamed and emotionally bullied by Bateman for asking questions that he didn’t want to answer. His bullying got so bad, he openly began calling her “bitch,” expected his followers (including her children) to do the same, and he pressured Julia to call herself a “bitch” during a group meeting.

The documentary shows plenty of examples of how a cult leader can use fear to control the minds of brainwashed cult members. Hypocrisy is also another characteristic of cults. The FLDS Church teaches that adultery and rape are sins, yet Bateman and other adults were participating in orgies involving adultery and rape. Cursing is also considered sinful in this church, yet the followers had no problems hurling curse-filled insults against people they consider to be traitors or enemies.

After months of a stalled investigation, things began to progress in the latter half of 2022, when the FBI got involved. The documentary shows Bateman getting arrested by local police in August 2022, when he was caught transporting several of his underage “wives” in an unsafe back trailer of a vehicle. Local police had been called because witnesses saw hands sticking out from the trailer and reported it as a possible kidnapping. Bateman did not have permission from all the girls’ parents to transport these girls.

After getting out on $150,000 bail provided by Torrance Bistline, Bateman went right back to what he was doing before the arrest because he thought he could beat the charges and he had no idea at the time that he was under FBI investigation. The FBI raided the Bateman properties (which included two houses and a warehouse) on September 13, 2022. The beginning of the FBI raid is shown in the documentary, but there’s a part of the documentary where an unidentified FBI agent can be heard telling the documentarians to turn off the camera.

Throughout the documentary, Marie expresses trepidation about her safety and fear about being exposed as an informant. (Her daughter Lola Blanc appears briefly in the documentary during a video phone conversation and shows her concern about Marie’s safety.) Marie also says multiple times in the documentary that many FLDS members will probably hate her for “betraying” them, but she firmly believes that getting justice for the survivors is worth the risk, and some of the survivors might be enlightened about Bateman’s lies and never go back to the cult. Marie decided to be present during the FBI raid because she says she felt it would be better for her to open the doors instead of the FBI knocking doors down.

The cult members were armed but somewhat secretive about the arsenal they had. There’s a scene in the documentary where Marie tries to find out what type of gun weapons they had, and the cult members giggle and give somewhat vague answers. One of the most jarring moments in the documentary is when an underage teenage girl is frantically searching for things to take during the FBI raid, and she blurts out: “Where’s my pepper spray? I need an AR-15!” It’s basically an admission that this cult wasn’t afraid to use military-level weapons.

The results of this FBI raid have already gotten a lot of media attention, such as cult members abducting their underage children who were placed in foster homes; the women who did the abducting briefly becoming fugitives; and the arrests and convictions of several people in the cult, including Bateman, who was sentenced to 50 years in prison in 2024. This case was Martin’s last case before she retired from the FBI. And she says in the documentary that it was also the hardest case and the most satisfying case she ever solves. However, the documentary ends with a statement that Bateman still has devoted believers. What is unknown is how many of these believers will continue to do what Bateman did, by inflicting ongoing damage and trauma on people who are too afraid or too powerless to escape.

Netflix premiered “Trust Me: The False Prophet” on April 8, 2026.

Review: ‘Faces of Death’ (2026), starring Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler and Charlie XCX

April 8, 2026

by Carla Hay

Barbie Ferreira in “Faces of Death” (Photo by Brian Roedel/Independent Film Company/Shudder)

“Faces of Death” (2026)

Directed by Daniel Goldhaber

Culture Representation: Taking place in New Orleans and in Jacksonville, Florida, the horror film “Faces of Death” (a reboot/sequel in the “Faces of Death” franchise) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people, African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A woman, who works at a company that monitors video uploads for a social media network, finds out that a serial killer is trying to recreate scenes from the 1978 movie “Faces of Death.”

Culture Audience: “Faces of Death” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the “Faces of Death” movie franchise, and predictable slasher flicks that have increasingly ludicrous plot developments.

Dacre Montgomery in “Faces of Death” (Photo by Brian Roedel/Independent Film Company/Shudder)

The “Faces of Death” movie series gets a reboot/sequel that aims to do what 2022’s “Scream” reboot/sequel did to rejuvenate the “Scream” franchise that began with 1996’s “Scream.” The “Faces of Death” franchise began with 1978’s “Faces of Death,” which spawned several tacky and forgettable sequels. In the 2026 version of “Faces of Death,” this slasher flick begins with an interesting meta horror concept about a serial killer recreating scenes from the 1978 fake snuff movie “Faces of Death.” But the 2026 version of “Faces of Death” devolves into idiotic junk with some terrible acting.

Directed by Daniel Goldhaber, the 2026 version of “Faces of Death” was co-written by Isa Mazzei and Goldhaber. The movie takes place in New Orleans and in Jacksonville, Florida. “Faces of Death” was filmed in Louisiana. Viewers don’t have to know anything about the other “Faces of Death” movies, because the 2026 version of “Faces of Death” explains and shows clips from the 1978 “Faces of Death” movie, which was filmed to look like a real snuff film but was actually a fictional horror movie.

In the 2026 version of “Faces of Death,” Margot Romero (played by Barbie Ferreira) is a 25-year-old lesbian who lives in New Orleans and works for a company called Kino Moderation, which moderates and evaluates videos that have been uploaded to unnamed social media company. Margot’s office environment looks like a call center, where she and other moderators spend their work time in computer-equipped cubicles. Kino’s employees look at videos and “flag” or remove those that have unacceptable or illegal content, usually having to do with violence, drugs and sex. The videos that are “flagged” but not removed get warning labels about the explicit content.

Margot is still heartbroken over a breakup with an ex-girlfriend. The breakup happened more than a year ago. Margot takes unidentified “upper” pills to stay awake. And she is haunted by a past tragedy that was recorded for a video that went viral and was apparently viewed by millions of people. The tragedy, which is eventually revealed in the movie, has something to do with a train, which is why Margot has the unflattering nickname Train Girl.

Margot lives with her best friend Ryan (played by Aaron Holliday), who is also openly gay. Ryan has been encouraging Margot to get back in the dating scene, but Margot is reluctant because she still doesn’t feel ready. “Faces of Death” is such a hollow movie, nothing about Margot’s personal life is relevant to the story except for the tragedy that was caught on video.

There’s an early scene in the movie where Ryan and Margot are in a bodega, and two teenage girls (played by Anne Nichols Brown and Anja Avsharian) stare and snicker at Margot before one of the teens asks if Margot is “the girl from the video.” An embarrassed Margot then quickly leaves the store with Ryan. Later in the movie, someone else recognizes Margot from the video. It’s another awkwardly staged scene.

Needless to say, Margot sees a lot of disturbing videos as part of her job. And her job responsibilities include deciding if what she is seeing is real or fake. Her incompetent boss Josh (played by Jermaine Fowler) is inclined to think a lot of the violent content could be people making an amateur horror movie, even though he’s not sure either. More than once, when Margot goes to Josh with concerns about a questionable video, Josh tells her that she’s being paranoid, and the video should be approved for upload because it’s about “giving the people what they want.”

Josh seems to be considering Margot for a promotion because he gives her some of his supervisor responsibilities to do—such as lead an orientation session for newly hired employees—when he wants to abandon these responsibilities to do other things outside of the office. The employees of Kino have to sign non-disclosure agreements about their Kino jobs and aren’t allowed to research the videos outside of work. And as soon as these rules are mentioned in the movie, you can easily predict that Margot will end up breaking those rules.

Charlie XCX (who’s best known as a singer, but who’s launched an acting career in the mid-2020s) shares star billing for “Faces of Death,” but she’s only in the movie for less than five minutes in a very inconsequential role. Charlie XCX plays a character named Gabby, a cynical stoner employee at Kino. During a work break, Margot goes on the roof of the building, where Gabby is smoking a marijuana cigarette and offers a puff to Margot, who declines the offer. Later in the movie, Gabby is briefly seen again with other Kino co-workers, who taunt Margot because they think she’s being too sensitive about the explicit content that they have to watch.

As already revealed in the trailers for “Faces of Death,” a serial killer has been uploading what appears to be real snuff videos that are tributes to scenes from 1978’s “Faces of Death.” One of the videos shows a blindfolded man, who is strapped to a chair and electrocuted. Margot sees these videos while she’s working, and she begins to suspect that these videos are being filmed and uploaded by the same person. Margot is determined to find out who it is. She breaks the company rules by doing some investigating and going on Reddit to ask for help from anonymous strangers.

It’s revealed early on in the movie that this serial killer is Arthur Spevak (played by Dacre Montgomery), a bachelor loner who works as a retail store manager at Signaler Wireless, a phone company in Jacksonville, Florida. Arthur uses his access to people’s phone records to target his victims. He wears masks while committing his crimes. Arthur is a stereotypical serial killer weirdo who hides behind having a “harmless” nerdy image. He has a house with several mannequins that he uses when he films his violent acts.

Some of the people who cross paths with Arthur include a bratty teen social media influencer named Samantha “Sam” Gravinsky (played by Josie Totah); a Jacksonville TV news anchor named Neal (played by Kurt Yue); and Neal’s teenage son Drew (played by Ash Maeda), who has something major happen to him, but then Drew is ignored for a part of the movie where he shouldn’t be ignored. Margot’s best friend Ryan also gets pulled into this serial killer mess.

Ferreira gives it her all in playing amateur sleuth Margot, but Ferreira over-acts in too many scenes, to the point where her acting almost looks campy. Margot also commits the common horror movie sin of doing incredibly illogical things, especially in situations involving life or death. Montgomery’s performance as serial killer Arthur isn’t much better, with overblown acting that looks more annoying than menacing. The rest of the cast members’ performances are serviceable in their roles as vague or superficial characters.

“Faces of Death” tries to drown out its substandard filmmaking and weak story with some very loud score music that can be sufficiently effective in creating a suspenseful tone. But the movie’s flimsy plot doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, with the last 30 minutes being especially atrocious. The concept of “Faces of Death” is that the movie is supposed to terrify viewers because of how realistic the horror looks. There is nothing realistic about many of the scenes in the moronic 2026 version of the movie.

Don’t expect a backstory for Arthur or a reason explaining why he became a serial killer. The movie never bothers with any of those details. Ultimately, the 1978 movie “Faces of Death” is merely used as a bait-and-switch gimmick for this 2026 namesake movie, which is just another unimaginative slasher flick with underdeveloped main characters and an extremely predictable ending.

Independent Film Company and Shudder will release “Faces of Death” in U.S. cinemas on April 10, 2026. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on April 6, 2026.

Review: ‘The Christophers’ (2026), starring Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, James Corden and Jessica Gunning

April 7, 2026

by Carla Hay

Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen in “The Christophers” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“The Christophers” (2026)

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Culture Representation: Taking place in London, the comedy/drama film “The Christophers” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A reclusive painter artist, who has an unfinished series of famous paintings called “The Christophers,” hires a new assistant, who has a secret agenda as an art forger.

Culture Audience: “The Christophers” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and psychological thrillers/dark comedies about greed, aging and unfinished business.

Michaela Coel in “The Christophers” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“The Christophers” is a deliciously witty psychological thriller and dark comedy about greed and creative value in the London art scene. Some parts of the movie are easy to predict, while others parts have clever surprises. “The Christophers” will keep people guessing until the very end about certain characters’ motives and the decisions that they will make.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Ed Solomon, “The Christophers” had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. “The Christophers” also screened other film festivals in 2025, including the Florida Film Festival and the Miami Film Festival. The movie takes place in mid-2020s London, where “The Christophers” was filmed on location.

“The Christophers” has a simple concept, but the plot is complicated with some twists and turns. Lori Butler (played by Michaela Coel) is a talented art enthusiast who also happens to be an expert at art forgery. She has recently been hired by to be an assistant for an unsuspecting legendary painter artist named Julian Sklar (played by Ian McKellen), who has become a recluse. Julian, who has been famous since the 1960s, is in his 80s when this story takes place.

Julian’s greatest work is considered to be his series of paintings called “The Christophers,” which are portraits of bisexual Julian’s much-younger ex-lover Christopher, whose identity has remained a mystery. Julian completed the first series of “The Christophers” from 1994 to 1995. He completed the second series from 1997 to 1998. After Julian and Christopher broke up sometime in the 2000s, Julian didn’t finish the third series, but if he did, it would be the most valuable of the series since Julian is nearing the end of his life. Julian became a recluse around the same time as his breakup with Christopher.

As already revealed in “The Christophers” trailer, Julian’s greedy children Barnaby Sklar (played by James Corden) and Sallie Milton Sklar (played by Jessica Gunning) actually hired Lori to infiltrate Julian’s very cluttered home, find the unfinished third “Christophers” series, and complete it by forgery. Barnaby and Sallie plan to sell these forgeries after Julian dies. Lori and Sallie have known each other since they went to the same art school.

When Lori interviewed to be Julian’s assistant, she lied when he asked her if she was an artist and if she had an ulterior motive to get him to finish “The Christophers” series. In the 2000s, before he became recluse, curmudgeonly Julian used to be a judge on a reality show talent show for artists called “Art Fight,” a program that he now despises because he thinks the show attracted people who cared more about being famous than being great in their art. (Not surprisingly, Julian was the harshest judge on the show.) He told Lori during her job interview that if she’s even been on “Art Fight,” then “you can show yourself out [the door] now.”

During Lori’s first few days on the job, she has to deal with Julian’s volatile and fickle personality but handles it with patience. She finds out that Julian doesn’t know and doesn’t care about modern workplace laws and workplace etiquette. For example, Julian repeatedly asks Lori if she has a boyfriend or a partner. She tells him that it’s inappropriate for a boss to ask that question to an employee. Lori doesn’t want to discuss her sexual identity or her love life with Julian, but details eventually emerge.

Most of “The Christophers” consists of the banter and unexpected bond between prickly Julian and determined Lori. The cast members’ performances are engaging, even when the story starts to drag a little, and even though this movie is not the principal cast members’ best work. Soderbergh keeps the tone of “The Christophers’ somewhere in between artsy intellectual and bluntly crass. “The Christophers” isn’t just about the value of art or talent. It’s also about the value that people place on themselves and any integrity they might have when that integrity is put to the test.

Neon will release “The Christophers” in select U.S. cinemas on April 10, 2026.

Review: ‘Forbidden Fruits’ (2026), starring Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Chamberlain and Gabrielle Union

April 7, 2026

by Carla Hay

Alexandra Shipp, Victoria Pedretti, Lili Reinhart and Lola Tung in “Forbidden Fruits” (Photo by Sabrina Lantos/Independent Film Company/Shudder)

“Forbidden Fruits” (2026)

Directed by Meredith Alloway

Culture Representation: Taking place in Dallas and briefly in Scottsdale, Arizona, the horror comedy film “Forbidden Fruits” (based on the play “Of the Woman Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Four witches, who are named after fruits and work at a women’s clothing store in a shopping mall, experience conflicts when three of the witches rebel against the group’s leader.

Culture Audience: “Forbidden Fruits” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and shallow horror movies about witches and female frenemies.

Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp and Lili Reinhart in “Forbidden Fruits” (Photo by Sabrina Lantos/Independent Film Company/Shudder)

“Forbidden Fruits” is a horror comedy that strains to be funny and doesn’t deliver anything scary until the last 15 minutes. It’s a sluggishly paced, meandering movie about a coven of emotionally immature witches who work at a Dallas clothing store. There’s a lot of fake feminism in the movie, which can’t decide if it wants to celebrate female empowerment or skewer it.

Directed by Meredith Alloway (who co-wrote the “Forbidden Fruits” screenplay with Lily Houghton), “Forbidden Fruits” had its world premiere at the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie is based on Houghton’s 2019 Off-Broadway play “Of the Woman Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die.” “Forbidden Fruits” is Alloway’s feature-film directorial debut. “Forbidden Fruits” takes place in Dallas and briefly in Scottsdale, Arizona. The movie was filmed in Toronto.

“Forbidden Fruits” has been described as a cross between 1996’s “The Craft” and 2004’s “Mean Girls.” However, the central characters in “The Craft” and “Mean Girls” are students in high school, which explains their juvenile attitudes. In “Forbidden Fruits,” the central characters are all women in their early-to-mid-20s, which makes their childish pettiness harder to tolerate. In addition, “Forbidden Fruits” is nowhere near as interesting as “The Craft” or “Mean Girls.”

“Forbidden Fruits” begins in a parking lot, with a scene that is an example of the movie’s stale comedy. The witch leader—a haughty and rude “queen bee” type named Apple (played by Lili Reinhart)—is parked and alone in her car in a Dallas shopping center called the Highland Place Mall. Apple notices that an unnamed middle-aged man (played by Jordan Duarte) is parked next to her in his truck, and he is leering at her. He has a license plate that reads “#1 Daddy.”

Apple indicates with her hands that she would be okay with this stranger masturbating while he looks at her. He eagerly grins and begins to masturbate. As the man is focused on pleasuring himself, Apple is still seated in the driver’s seat and has a carafe of hot coffee. She opens her car window and throws the hot coffee on him, so that a lot of coffee can land on his groin area.

Apple then smugly walks into the shopping mall, as if she knows nothing will be done about this crime. Of course, nothing happens to Apple, and this incident is never mentioned again. “Forbidden Fruits” has an annoying pattern of trying to define “female empowerment” as women treating men badly, even though everyone knows that if the gender roles were reversed and men treated women this way, these awful actions would get criticism for being misogynistic and damaging.

As it turns out, Apple’s coffee-throwing attack is one of the few things in the first two thirds of the movie that is memorable, even though it’s a cheap and tacky gag. Most of the movie drags with repetition and is polluted with a lot of eye-rolling dialogue that doesn’t sound like how real people would ever talk. And as the leader of this witch coven, Apple is just a pompous bore who likes to lecture her minions on what they should do and how they should act.

Apple works as sales clerk at a women’s clothing store called Free Eden. In the beginning of the movie, there are two other witches in this coven, which requires all of the witch members to have their first names be the names of fruits. Fig (played by Alexandra Shipp), the most outspoken subordinate member, is planning to go to grad school. Cherry (played by Victoria Pedretti) is an air-headed flirt who is desperate for the approval of Apple and the attention of men. Fig and Cherry are also sales clerks at Free Eden. Apple openly disrespects Cherry by frequently hurling insults and condescending comments at Cherry.

The coven will soon let a fourth member join the group. Her name is Pumpkin (played by Lola Tung), who meets these three witches because Pumpkin works at a nearby pretzel shop called Sister Salt’s in the shopping mall. Pumpkin seems to be a friendly people-pleaser. In her first few scenes in the movie, she hands out samples of cinnamon-covered pretzels. Apple is dismissive of Pumpkin until she finds out that her name is Pumpkin.

It isn’t long before Apple decides that Pumpkin should work at Free Eden and join the coven. There happens to be a job opening for a sales clerk at Free Eden because the person who previously had the job is a former coven member who left the job when she was ousted from the coven for a reason that is eventually revealed in the movie. This former colleague is named Pickle (played by Emma Chamberlain), and she gives the impression of being mentally ill. The first few times that Pickle is seen in the movie, she pounds her head against glass windows with a vacant stare until she is removed or asked to leave.

The coven’s initiation ritual is completely ridiculous, but not in a way that’s amusing. First, Apple orders Fig and newcomer Pumpkin to blow what is presumably marijuana smoke in the other coven members’ mouths. Then, the four women have to say their name and the season when their namesake fruit gets the most harvesting.

As part of the ritual, Apple orders Pumpkin to hit Apple hard in the face. Pumpkin hesitantly obeys this order. Apple eyes get teary, and she makes her tears drop inside a rhinestone-covered silver cowboy boot. And then, Apple tells Pumpkin that Pumpkin has to drink from the boot. Pumpkin obeys this command too. It all looks so stupid instead of hilarious.

Even though there are candles and other indications that this is a ritual, Pumpkin still asks, “Are you witches?” Apple doesn’t deny it and replies, “To put it simply, our magic is the mundane shit you would’ve been executed for in Salem. Being a witch is being a sister. And we all need sisterhood to survive. That’s why I created paradise.” Who talks like that except in poorly written movies like this one?

Pumpkin is then told the coven’s three main rules:

(1) The Shine Theory states that women illuminate when they surround themselves with other women who shine, and they don’t do anything to dim their light.

(2) The vindicar is a demon that derives pleasure from people’s pain and misery. The witches are supposed to banish vindicars. (By the way, there is no demon or demon banishment in this movie, so this rule is useless.)

(3) Only communicate with men by using text emojis. Cherry tells Pumpkin that this third rule is the most important rule.

Predictably, just like in “The Craft” and “Mean Girls,” the newcomer to the clique makes the clique a quartet, and she undergoes a makeover to fit in better with the clique. She changes the way she dresses and her hairstyle. She also becomes less introverted and more confident, but this assertiveness is perceived as a threat to the bossy leader, who wants to be in control of the group at all times.

Not much is told about these characters and what their interests are outside of the shopping mall. All of the coven members are from cities in Texas. Pumpkin says she’s from Plano. Fig is from Irving. Apple is from Grapevine. Cherry is from Highland Park.

Fig tells Pumpkin that Cherry’s entire family has died and left her without an inheritance. Apple’s father is deceased. Fig also tells Pumpkin that because the fathers of Apple and Cherry are deceased, then Apple and Cherry are part of the “elite Dead Dads Club.” Again: Who talks like this? No one who is appealing.

Meanwhile, Pumpkin is seen making secretive phone calls to Pumpkin’s mother, who is not seen or heard in the movie. Pumpkin isn’t as naïve as she appears to be. The short and furtive conversations that Pumpkin has with her mother reveal that Pumpkin has deliberately infiltrated this coven because Pumpkin wants to spy on someone in the coven. Pumpkin’s secret is revealed near the end of the movie.

The movie has nonsensical references to 20th century female movie stars. For example, Apple tells the other women in the coven that when they do private confessionals, they have to speak as if the ghost of Marilyn Monroe is in the room. Meanwhile, Cherry has a female Scottish Fold cat named Shirley Temple, whom Cherry brings to work because these witches are never seen at home.

Most of “Forbidden Fruits” becomes a series of sulking and moody scenes where Cherry and Fig are paranoid that Apple will find out that they’re dating guys and (gasp!) are communicating with them by not using text emojis. Fig’s love interest is Norman (played by Siddharth Sharma), who works at a restaurant. Cherry is having sex in the Free Eden dressing rooms with random guys who work at various places in the shopping mall.

As for newcomer Pumpkin, she confesses to Cherry that Pumpkin is a virgin. Cherry warns Pumpkin that Apple doesn’t approve of women being virgins. Too much of this disappointing and tedious movie is about Apple dictating what the coven members can or cannot do in their love lives. What happened to the Shine Theory of uplifting and supporting other women and letting them shine, instead of trying to control and demean them? (See the coven’s Rule No. 1.) Forget about that in “Forbidden Fruits.” Apple is all about being a mean-spirited cult leader.

Apple, Fig and Cherry often talk badly about Free Eden manager Sharon (played by Gabrielle Union) when they’re not in the same room as Sharon. Fig and Cherry try to boost Apple’s already oversized ego by telling Apple that Apple could do a better job than Sharon as the store’s manager. Sharon isn’t fully seen on screen until a mid-credits scene in the film, which veers wildly into plot twist after plot twist in the last 15 minutes. The end of “Forbidden Fruits” also hints that the “Forbidden Fruits” filmmakers want to make a sequel to this tripe.

The performances in “Forbidden Fruits” aren’t terrible, but a lot of it is very lackluster that reflects a script where not much happens for most of this movie that squanders its potential and plays it too safe. “Forbidden Fruits” aims for campiness and ends up with limpness. The backstory for Pumpkin and the reason why she’s infiltrated this coven are rushed in toward the end of the movie and are not adequately explained.

“Forbidden Fruits” also hints at homoeroticism in the group (such as the scene where they blow smoke in each other’s mouths, or the witches act flirtatious with each other), but it’s the equivalent of a queer-coded tease. None of the witches in this coven openly identifies as queer. (One of the witches is a closeted lesbian, which is revealed when the movie is nearly over.) If any of the witches have love interests, the love interests are only cisgender men.

Some aspects of “Forbidden Fruits” are commendable, such as the vibrant production design and character-driven costume design, even if the witches dress like they’re stuck in the early 2000s, when this movie is supposed to take place in the mid-2020s. Unfortunately, the movie’s cinematography is uneven, with lighting that looks often looks too flat. “Forbidden Fruits” has a burst of madcap energy and terror in the last 15 minutes, but it’s too little, too late. And ultimately, it’s hard to take so-called “feminist” witches seriously when they copy the same concept as Fruit of the Loom underwear mascots.

Independent Film Company and Shudder released “Forbidden Fruits” in U.S. cinemas on March 27, 2026.